April 2, 2017 - Sanibel - Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

The Yellow-crowned Night-Heron is aptly named because it is most active at night. So, I was not surprised to find this one snoozing during the day along the wildlife drive at Ding Darling NWR on Sanibel Island, Florida. Also, note that it does, indeed, have yellow feathers on the top of its head. Some bird names do make perfect sense.

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You do find Yellow-crowned Night-Herons active during the day as this photo and the rest in this series show. All of these photos were taken at Ding Darling NWR. I think the wind was blowing from behind which made the white plumes on its head stand up. The Night-Heron is 24 inches tall.

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The bird in the middle photo has its head scrunched way down. Note how different it can look in the other two photos when the neck is stretched out.

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This Night-Heron was stalking something along the shore so I stopped to watch it. Eventually, it lunged and came up with the tiny morsel that you can see at the very end of its bill.

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This is a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. It can be hard to distinguish from a juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron. The all black bill identifies it as a Yellow-crowned because the Black-crowned has a yellow and black bill.

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Crabs make up a large part of the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron’s diet. This bird is stalking its prey along the edge of the mangroves.

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I can’t remember if this bird was calling or yawning. In either case, it’s giving us a good look at its tongue.

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